Biopics often take creative liberties with the central subject’s life story.
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However, musician Daniel Thompson feels the Johnny Cash film Walk The Line largely gets it right.
“It’s a reasonably accurate telling of that period of Johnny Cash’s life,” he said.
“It’s pretty truthful and pretty brutal in the way it presents some of what happened in his life.
“I think that’s why people responded so well to it.”
Central Coast-based Thompson is an authority on the subject, given he’s starred as the Man in Black in the ‘Johnny Cash: The Concert’ tribute show for several years.
The show stars Thompson and Australian country guitar legend/Golden Guitar winner Stuie French. They are aided by their musical engine room, The Tennessee Express.
Since 2009, the show has played more than 100 gigs to in excess of 35,000 fans.
Following a sold-out, one night only performance at the Sydney Opera House in 2016, ‘Johnny Cash: The Concert’ goes national once more in 2017.
The Walk The Line show will feature all the Cash songs as performed in the 2005 movie and on its soundtrack album, as well as hits and highlights from Cash’s entire career.
The show is delivered in a storytelling-type fashion, but Thompson emphasises that he’s a singer, not an actor.
“There were a few things in the film that we haven’t done before, a few songs and things like that,” Thompson said.
“We did that one-off show, which was to really celebrate that, and what people love about Johnny Cash and the way that they found their way into his music.
“And a lot of people did find it through the film.
“So it’s a bit of a celebration of the release of the film, but generally we just do the hits of Johnny Cash, talk a little about the movie… We’re trying to create a little of the atmosphere of the movie in the show as well.”
The film aside, Thompson agrees that another factor in Cash’s music reaching new generations of fans was signing to hard rock/hip-hop producer Rick Rubin's American label in the early 90s, and releasing the American Recordings albums.
The series featured original compositions as well as popular covers of contemporary acts such as Nine Inch Nails and Soundgarden.
Could these records be a potential theme for a future incarnation of ‘Johnny Cash: The Concert’?
“Yeah, it’s definitely something I’d like to do, focus on those American Recordings albums… There’s six albums worth of material there and it’s all great stuff,” Thompson said.
‘Johnny Cash: The Concert’ will perform at Shoalhaven Entertainment Centre on Friday, March 24 and at Illawarra Performing Arts Centre on Saturday, March 25.